Starting from Scratch
by RevDragon
Summary: Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like nothing's going right, or you get a major case of writers block? Maybe some people get genius block. How I thought Bentley felt, trying to plan the Cooper Vault heist. Better than summary. -Oneshot-


**A/N Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like nothing's going right, or you get a major case of writers block? Maybe some people get genius block haha, but they persevere, and get through it, like Thomas Edison, Einstein. Well this is kind of how I thought Bentley would feel trying to plan the huge heist on the Cooper Vault. It's set in between Sly 2 and 3. It draws influence from the song "Scratch" by Allister, it's not a song fic per se, but it does have some lyrical elements in it.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the song Scratch, or the characters from the Sly Cooper series, they belong to Allister and Sucker Punch, respectively.**

Starting from Scratch

It was another beautiful night in France; it was a full moon, which only added to the luminance of the evening. The night life was a pretty sight to see. People were going about their business, walking around on the streets, and there were lovers in the parks just enjoying the moment together.

However at the Cooper gang hideout, the one thing absent from the night was the thing Bentley needed most: sleep; he had been working on plans to break into Dr. M's fortress and the Cooper Vault for weeks now, ever since Sly had visited McSweeny and found out about the vault. Tonight was no exception, it was 12 am, and he still hadn't made enough progress in his mind. Blueprints and crumpled papers covered the floor and markers, tape, and coffee mugs were on the table in the main room. Sly was either already sleeping or running around somewhere, being a master thief he could sneak out anytime he wanted. _Probably to go spy on Carmelita, _Bentley thought to himself, _His fixation with that cop lady is going to get him busted for good one day, or at least until I have to break him out again. _He shook his head and looked down at the blueprints of Dr. M's fortress, and realized that it was exactly as it was called, a fortress. Huge walls with towers mounted all along the perimeter and hundreds of guards all around, as well as guns and sharks and electrical currents in the water and who knew what else was in there. "This is impossible, " Bentley said to himself, "Even if we had Murray back on the team there's absolutely no way just us three could get in there, and even if we did we'd only get so far before getting tripped up on some form of security and making the whole thing shut down like Alcatraz on us."

Bentley pulled out a red marker and drew a circle and then an X on the towers, dissatisfied, he scribbled over the blueprint and tossed it away. Moving his wheelchair over to the desk to grab a new one, he saw a picture of Murray, Sly, and him all next to the gang van, grinning and having a great time. _Man, it's been a long time since we've all been together at once, _He remembered Murray leaving the team to follow a peaceful non-violent way to live life, after the incident with Clock-La causing him to lose the ability to walk, and restricting him to a wheel chair. It changed Murray, completely going against his nature. Bentley never blamed Murray, but he blamed himself, this was the second time they'd been separated for a long period of time, the first time was when Sly and Murray had gotten arrested in India along with Rajan, the spice tiger, and surprisingly Carmelita, courtesy of the Contessa and the traitor Neyla. He sighed, he almost had a complete panic attack when that happened, _but thank God I'm more capable than that, _he thought to himself.Using his intelligence, he was able to successfully rescue Sly, break Murray out of the Contessa's prison, and after that, Murray even let him drive the gang van, something he never would have even thought would happen during his lifetime.

Rolling back over to the table and staring at the blueprints once more, intently. Bentley felt his mind just go blank, he couldn't think of any way to further the plan, and it frustrated him to no end. Deciding to take a break instead of fussing over the plans, he went to the computer to see if there were any of his online buddies to contact, he was mostly hoping for AirHeartBabe to be online, since he enjoyed chatting with her, _Not to mention the fact that she is soo hot- er I mean good looking ah uh, oh boy, _Bentley face-palmed himself and realized he was drooling again then dropped his head in the desk. Unfortunately when he signed to the Thiefnet chat room, there was no one online. Disappointed, he moved back to the desk, to face the plans again, "Okay, here we go I can come up with something, I can do this I just have to think." He pulled out the marker to draw on the plan, gazing intently at the high level security systems put in place by Dr. M. "Maybe if we can find a way to disable everything at once, but how can we can in there without being detected by those towers." He mentally crossed that idea out in his mind, "What if we try- no it would be way too loud and take a ton of dynamite to blow through walls that thick, not to mention he probably has an army of guards behind there somewhere and we don't. Or maybe we could –no that wouldn't work either, how about- nope, nada maybe- Ugghhhh." Bentley groaned as he tossed even more copies of the blueprints on the floor. "I've been sitting here for hours trying to think of this stupid plan and I can't come up with anything, it's back to scratch again!" Bentley yelled angrily, "Humph as if I ever had anything to begin with," he mumbled to himself. _I feel like I've literally hit a wall here, a Dr. M sized wall for that matter. _He looked at the clock, _3 am! _He sighed and hit his head on the desk.

"Hey Bentley," called a voice from behind him.

"Sly, what are you doing out here, can't you see I'm busy trying to make these plans so we can get our biggest job ever done,"

"Calm down buddy, I just heard you yelling so I came to check what was happening" Sly said, "You've been at this for 8 hours straight today, and from the looks of things…" he said glancing at the hundreds of papers covering the floor, "There's not much success yet is there?"

"No," Bentley shook his head sadly, "It's a near impenetrable fortress."

"Maybe you should take a break, pal, go out and get some air or something," Sly offered.

"I need to get these plans together, but I can't think right now, even if we had Murray back there's no way we could get in without getting caught," replied Bentley.

"Speaking of Murray, have you had any luck locating him?" Sly asked hopefully.

Bentley shook his head again, "I haven't been focused on that much else besides this."

"Come on Bentley," Sly said, bending down to pick up some of the papers scattered by his feet, "You should probably get some air, there's still plenty of criminals walking around with their pockets full of gold, and heads full of air, you know."

"Ahem, Sly, do you forget I'm in a wheelchair?" Bentley sighed.

"But what about those modifications you made hmm?" Sly said with that cheesy grin of his.

"Sly, those are in the PROTOTYPE stage, they're not ready for testing yet," Bentley replied.

"Oh," Sly said, somewhat disappointed, "Well, I guess I'll just help you clean up then…"

"Thank you," Bentley said, as he started to straighten up the desk he had been using.

As, Sly was picking up the papers, he spotted a small book halfway buried under blueprints. Recognizing what it was, he grinned again and said, "Hey Bentley, look what I found."

Bentley looked over and sighed, "A book?"

"Not just any book," Sly chuckled, "It's a photo album, and can you guess what's inside?"

"Uhh photos?" Bentley said, growing impatient.

"Yes, photos of all our times and heists together," Sly said, as he opened the book and peered inside, "And look, it's even got a photo of Carmelita in it."

Bentley could practically see the huge grin on Sly's face even though his back was turned towards him, "Just exactly how did you manage to get Carmelita to let you, of all people take a picture of her?" He said as he turned his to face him again

"Who says she let me?" Sly grinned once more. By now Bentley was sure if his grin got any wider it would wrap around Sly's head, and he would disappear like the Cheshire Cat.

"Besides, she's more beautiful when she's angry anyway." Sly said, which elicited an annoyed groan from Bentley, "Here, 'Wizard' take a look at it," he tossed the book to Bentley, and Bentley caught it, and opened it. "See?" Sly walked over to him and pointed at a picture in the book of him, Bentley, and Murray all enjoying a night in India, Murray was eating curry, _not surprising, _Bentley thought to himself, as he chuckled a little bit, remembering the curry eating contest that had ended in a two day stomachache for the big hippo.

"So, why are we taking the trip down memory lane, Sly? I don't see how this has anything to do with the heist," Bentley asked, as he flipped through the pages of the book.

"Because sometimes, you just have to take your time, slow down, life's too short not to cherish all the memories of it. We get so busy sometimes, our minds get clouded and that's when we realize that so much happens so fast, and we can't think straight; it interferes. I had to learn this the hard way when I lost my dad." The raccoon said, simply, "Almost everything we've done since the orphanage, we've done together, and we're going to get this job done the same way, together."

"I agree with you there, no reason why we shouldn't…" Bentley replied, "But it's not really the same, trying to juggle planning this heist, while knowing that we're still not at our full potential as the Cooper gang."

"Feels like forever since the whole gangs been together…" Sly said, sadly.

"Yeah," Bentley agreed, "It's been too long, Sly, but even with all of us together, wouldn't be able to break into that vault. It would literally take an army to get in there!" he said, sounding somewhat exasperated. Sly raised an eyebrow, "An army of thieves huh?" he said to himself, "Now there's an interesting concept, Bentley."

"What do you mean, Sly? You're saying we might actually open up to the possibility of adding to the Cooper gang!"

"Well from the beginning it's always been just us three, you, me, and 'The Murray'." Sly furrowed his brow, and a serious, more thoughtful look appeared on his face. Meanwhile Bentley's mind immediately started throwing possibilities around. "Hmm, yeah maybe that would work," Bentley muttered, as he moved back, to the desk and pulled out yet another copy of the blueprint for Dr. M's fortress. "Maybe not an army, Sly, but perhaps a few specialists who can take out the defenses, using their own strengths and abilities…" Bentley started muttering to himself as he drew circles and X's on the paper. Sly smirked, knowing his genius friend just got another one of his best ideas, and would probably up the rest of the night planning things out. Not wanting to disturb him any further, he turned and started to leave before he heard Bentley's voice. "Hey, Sly?"

"Yeah, pal?" Sly said.

"Thanks for the help, 'Sly One'," the turtle said.

"No problem… 'Wizard'," Sly chuckled and left, while Bentley focused back on the plans. _Interesting, _he thought to himself, _I have the highest IQ here, but while I couldn't seem to get my brain to focus, yet the simplest conversation and memories gave me my focus back again. I give him credit; he's certainly smarter than you'd think he is. _"Well," he smiled, "Looks like it's time to start from scratch again."

**A/N Well that's it I suppose, I know, I know, I took some liberty with that one scene from the game and turned it into this oneshot, but I'm okay with it XD, so tell me what you think, love it? Hate it? (I hope you don't though, :3) leave a review and tell me what you think.**


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